New suburb with 600 houses planned for Rundu

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John Muyamba
Rundu
The town of Rundu, where the housing backlog currently stands at around 30,000 units, will soon get a new suburb with 600 modern housing units and townhouses, with 100 of the houses to be completed by the end of this year.
The 600 units will comprise two bedroom houses with a garage and some without a garage, as well as three bedroom houses with garages and some without. The house prices will range between N$500,000 and N$900,000, the developers of the housing project said this week.
The servicing of the erven is being done by Armstrong Constructions and the construction will be done by Armstrong Properties. Both companies belong to Ferdinand Olavi and Mathew Hungamo.
In an interview with New Era, the owners of Armstrong Constructions and Properties said the project is just what Rundu needed as a solution to the housing backlog, which has over the years become an issue of serious concern, especially for people in the low-income and ultra-low income categories.
The company will develop the new suburb on a 82-hectare plot in an area between the Trans-Caprivi Highway and the Rundu-Nkurenkuru road. The suburb will also have a fuel station, a private doctors’ consulting room and a supermarket, to name a few.
Currently the company is busy constructing roads leading to the area and will start with installing sewerage lines in May before the actual construction of the houses starts in June. Electrification of the suburb would then follow.
This is a private-public partnership project with the Rundu Town Council and will be built in phases.
“The council is bringing land. After servicing and developing the land they will get their share when the developer will sell the plots to the banks, who are going to finance the houses. And after selling it we take out our money that we used to service the land and out of the profit we share 50/50. For example, if the profit is N$20,000 we share it 50/50, [but] we are only 50/50 on land, not on the houses,” Olavi noted.
The prices of the plots are included in the prices of the housing units. Olavi says, with his business partner Mathew, they felt they needed to do something for their home town and that is to bring modern houses at affordable prices.
“Mind you, this is the first suburb to be developed by local investors. The last townships were developed by people from elsewhere, who came to do business here.
“This is our initiative, which we took to the council and told them we want land for this purpose and we discussed it and we are happy they responded positively. This is what we are offering, houses for our people,” he said.
Rundu has since Independence developed suburbs, such as Millennium Park, Queens Park and recently Rainbow Village, as well as the old NHE township - also known as Kings Park - and the new NHE mass housing township development next to Unam Rundu Campus, as well as the new suburb that is now under construction.
The new houses will be fitted with modern facilities, but unlike the old suburbs, they will all have aluminium frames on the windows, the developers said. New Era Reporter 2017-04-20 11:06:26 2 years ago